Honey Bees at Bellorama

We have been keeping honey bees in the area for the last 15 years. Two years ago, we set-up the Milton Apiary to take advantage of the village garden flowers across East Knoyle and the Lime trees around The Clouds Estate.

This year, we have been working with James Hyde at Milton Farm to optimise his Countryside Stewardship scheme to create the very best conditions for our bees.

Our best wildflower meadow is by the Bellorama campsite, 500M from the apiary and well within the 1.5Km average foraging range for our bees. This gives an extra benefit for the Bellorama guests of seeing pollinating bees close at hand (without having beehives in their campsite). We have supplemented James Hyde’s  Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) Plants for Pollinators common wildflower seed mix with lots of Borage.

Borage is the highest known plant source of gamma-linolenic acid (Omega 6 fatty acid). It is a fantastic source of B vitamins, beta-carotene, fibre, choline, and, trace minerals. Bees love Borage it is excellent for their gut microbiome. It also allows us to counteract the impact of the high glucose sugar content of local early-season Oil Seed Rape honey. Oil Seed Rape honey, almost immediately, granulates in the frame and is very difficult for the bees to extract and use as stores. This contrasts with Borage honey that has a very high fructose sugar content and almost never granulates.

Borage honey, combined with some of the later season nectar sources, for example Ivy, gives the bees an ideal mix of honey for their Winter stores. This will allow them to build-up their colonies more quickly in Spring and create stronger colonies in and around East Knoyle.

The Problem:

Bee farming and industrial honey production is largely responsible for importing circa 30,000 queens and individual colonies into the UK, every year. This in itself creates a high risk of importing bee diseases and pests; e.g. Small Hive Beatle – common in Southern Italy and not found in the UK.

What we are we doing:

I am a member of the Bee Improvement and Bee Breeders Association (BIBBA). We are trying to counter the impact on bee diversity of imported Bees and Queens and maintain or re-introduce the native Northern European Honey Bee (Apis mellifera mellifera – AMM). The AMM is widely understood to be better evolved for UK conditions than their southern European and Balkan cousins. In East Knoyle, we already have successfully bred near-native queens; If, through the introduction of sympathetic farming practices, we are able to create the optimum conditions for bees in and around East Knoyle; I will further develop my queen rearing programme. I will be able to give the daughter queens of our AMM queens to local beekeepers. These daughters will create male Drone bees with a higher AMM genetic content and improve the diversity of all the bees in the area.

Author: Tom Kenyon

---

If you live in South Wiltshire / locally to Bellorama and need advice or removal of Honey Bee swarms, please contact Rob Whittick: